17.24.804    ALLUVIAL VALLEY FLOORS: MONITORING

(1) An environmental monitoring system must be installed, maintained and operated by the permittee on all alluvial valley floors during strip or underground coal mining and reclamation operations and continued until all bonds are released in accordance with ARM 17.24.1114.   The monitoring system must provide sufficient information to allow the department to determine that:

(a) the agricultural utility and production of the alluvial valley floor not within the affected area is being preserved;

(b) the potential agricultural utility and production on the alluvial valley floor within the area the land affected has been reestablished;

(c) the important characteristics supporting the essential hydrologic functions of the alluvial valley floor in the affected area have been reestablished after mining;

(d) the important characteristics supporting the essential hydrologic functions of an alluvial valley floor in areas not affected are preserved during and after mining;

(e) farming on lands protected under ARM 17.24.802 is not being interrupted, discontinued, or precluded; and

(f) the operation is not causing material damage to the quantity or quality of water in the surface or underground systems that supply alluvial valley floors protected under ARM 17.24.802.

(2) Monitoring must be performed at adequate frequencies, to indicate long-term trends that could affect agricultural use of the alluvial valley floors.

(3) Monitoring must be performed during operations to identify characteristics of the alluvial valley floor not identified in the permit application and to evaluate the importance of all characteristics requested by the department.

(4) All monitoring data collected and analyses thereof must routinely be made available to the department.

 

History: 82-4-205, MCA; IMP, 82-4-227, 82-4-231, MCA; NEW, 1980 MAR p. 725, Eff. 4/1/80; AMD, 1989 MAR p. 30, Eff. 1/13/89; TRANS, from DSL, 1996 MAR p. 3042; AMD, 2024 MAR p. 258, Eff. 2/10/24.